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It Was One of Those Weeks…
The tech woes were coming in waves this past week and, after a while, all I could do was laugh and adapt.
Laugh and adapt…if only I’d known about that approach to problem-solving a lot sooner.
Given that I work in new/digital media, even a minor tech glitch that lasts an hour can really throw a wrench into the works. It’s as if my workstation in the cyber factory of my life has a critical failure that, despite seeming unimportant, can greatly threaten overall production.
This week was an ongoing series of reminders of just how tethered to technology my professional life is. Most of ours are these days. I then began reflecting upon my personal life and technology, which is something I rarely do. I’ve never been one to lament the amount of screen time we all have now. It’s a fact of life that I’ve gotten so used to that I tend to not mentally step away and think about how it’s affecting me.
Maybe it’s time to do that now.
I’ve come to appreciate life balance more than ever but I’m not so good at it. The idea of balance hangs around on the periphery of my life along with “get more sleep” and “nobody needs a third helping.” All are important to remember but are useless if one isn’t actually doing them.
One of my favorite things about moving back to Tucson a few years ago was rediscovering the fact that my hometown is a hiking mecca. I had been doing some hiking right before I left Los Angeles and I just kept it going when I arrived here. One of my friends from L.A. visited shortly after I got here and we spent the early morning and afternoon hours hiking in Sabino Canyon (that’s the pic below). By mid-afternoon, we were ready for cold beer and day drinking.
It was Heaven.
I kept adding hikes to my regular cycling and workout regimens and — SURPRISE! — I was in pretty good shape. Sadly, hiking was one of the many things ruined by the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the more insane and perplexing responses to the Bat Flu was to prevent people who had access to wide-open spaces and fresh air from enjoying either. All of our hiking areas were shut down. When they did finally reopen, the stupid mask rules were still in effect.
Again, I have yet to hear the medical case against fresh air.
My tech hell week has made me realize that I need to take a hike. Several hikes, in fact, and frequently. What better way to detox from screen time than to wander around in my beloved Sonoran Desert paying attention to where the rattlers might be rather than Twitter? It’s not exactly the best hiking weather here at this time of year, but I can’t wait until October to get this plan in action. There is a short but strenuous hike just a couple of miles away from me that’s easy to bug out to for an hour. Once things do cool off, some longer weekend hikes can be put on the schedule.
Who are my hikers out there? Let me know some of your favorites.
I should go hide my phone now.